


What Are You Doing?

by saambucky



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: F/M, SO, Spoilers, also this is pretty much purely fluff, takes place some months after the events of the movie, this is in the realm of canon, with a teeny bit of blink-and-you'll-miss-it angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2017-07-23
Packaged: 2018-12-05 23:15:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11588163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saambucky/pseuds/saambucky
Summary: A few months after the disaster that was homecoming, Peter starts to reevaluate his relationships around him. Well one relationship in particular.





	What Are You Doing?

**Author's Note:**

> Alright! So this is the longest thing I've ever actually written, let alone finished so pat on the back for that! I've been working on it ever since the movie came out and it has been a beautiful struggle to plow through this chick. I love her though and I'm very proud so I hope you guys at the very least find it somewhat enjoyable lmao. I hope I did these character's justice.
> 
> Also if anyone is here who read my Wolfgang and Kala fic, I will be attempting to finish that! The whole whirlwind of the cancellation and then the revival just messed with my muse. Sorry :\

The goal was to be completely and utterly silent as Peter tiptoed up the empty stairwell leading to the roof as quickly and quietly as he could. Even though it was well past midnight and all the students and chaperons from their trip had long since gone to sleep, he still wanted to be careful. He’d thought for a minute about just scaling the walls because on one hand it would definitely be a whole lot faster as well as quieter. On the other though, he didn’t really have any kind of excuse for anyone who might stumble upon him just casually chilling stuck against the wall, especially out of costume. So stairs it was.

Finally reaching the very top and pushing open the door open to the outside, Peter breathed in that post-rain night air before letting out a sigh of relief. Walking over to the raised ledge of the roof, Peter dumped his backpack carelessly onto it so that he could rifle though it, searching for his suit amongst all the other junk he kept buried in there.

“What are you doing?” An annoyingly familiar voice rang out, startling him so much he almost accidentally knocked his bag right over the edge in his rush to shove everything in and keep his suit hidden from prying eyes.

Turning sharply towards the sound of the voice, Peter saw Michelle. Feet dangling off the side of the building with her trademark book open in her lap. Thinking back on it Peter didn’t think that there was ever a moment that he saw her without one. He honestly starting to wonder if she somehow kept a secret stash of books all over the city so that she could easily just pull one out whenever she felt the urge. At this point in his life, he didn’t think that would even surprise him considering all the stuff he’s seen lately.

“Earth to Parker, are you having a malfunction or something?” She raised an expectant eyebrow at him.

Peter realized that he’d been staring at her clutching his back obsessively against his chest without saying anything for probably what was just creeping past that boarder into uncomfortable territory.

“Um,” He cleared his throat and let his grip on his bag slacken a little bit. “Nothing, I’m not doing anything. You know just up here getting some fresh air, as one does.” It’s not like he could exactly just come out and say that he’d about to slip into his high tech super spider suit that had been gifted to him by his billionaire mentor? Team leader? Boss? Tony Stark so that he could go patrol the city. Didn’t really roll off the tongue so easy.

She gave him a disbelieving look, or maybe it was just one of the usual unimpressed looks she gave him, he couldn’t really tell. Michelle was always giving him these looks and he hadn’t quite mastered the meaning of all of them just yet.

The two of them lapsed into an awkward silence as they stood, well in Michelle’s case sat, there and just regarded each other with equal parts suspicion.

Peter was so wrapped up in getting her to at least partly believe his lie when he realized that he wasn’t alone up here. Well logically he’d realized it earlier because she had just spoken to him, but it fell into place that she was also on the roof alone well past midnight.

“What about you?” He questioned, one arm now stationed on his hip as he tried to mimic her earlier eyebrow raise. He suspected that his didn’t really have the same effect hers did though. “What are you doing up here so late?”

His suspicions were pretty much proved when she donned her usual apathetic mask and lifted the book that had been resting in her lap like it clearly should have been obvious and he was stupid for even asking.

“You couldn’t just read in your room?” He asked, genuinely confused.

“What are you the reading police? Maybe I just wanted a change in scenery. I’m not a total introvert you know.” With a roll of her eyes she went back to her book and pretended he wasn’t even there.

Peter found himself at a bit of an impasse, he could (and probably should), just go back down and just find some other way to leave the hotel undetected so that he could go on his patrol like he originally planned. Worst case scenario he could just go back to his room and sneak out the window; but then he’d risk waking Flash and that was absolutely the very last thing he wanted to do. He was pretty sure he’d rather give Hulk a full detail pedicure before he dealt with not only waking Flash from his precious beauty sleep much less having him find out that _ _he__  was Spider-Man.

Or, he could do what he’d lied and said he was gonna do, which was stay up here and get some fresh air. It would probably be a little weird if he suddenly just ran away, right? Most likely it would end up having him look even more sketchy and suspicious in Michelle’s eyes.

Both arguments were warring inside his head bring their own sets of pros and cons with them and Peter’s eyes found themselves darting towards the roof door, then to the ledge where Michelle was sitting. Back and forth and back and forth as he tried to make up his mind on what he should do in this situation.

“Are you having line an exorcist moment or something because I don’t think you’re supposed actively try to turn your head three-sixty degrees.” Michelle’s voice piped up again, this time not even bothering to look back up at him.

Peter let his backpack hang limply at his side in his hand and his gaze dropped down towards it. He supposed that the city could survive one night without him, right? Hadn’t Mr. Stark droned on and on just a few months ago about there being other people who handled things too? He wasn’t really expecting anything extremely out of the ordinary. There hadn’t been any reports or leads he was trying to follow up on so he figured a few hours couldn’t hurt. He could always go out later.

Mind made up, Peter dragged his bag along to where Michelle was sitting and dropped it on the ground as he took a seat beside her. Not too close because he didn’t really think they were that close of friends, but not too far either. A perfectly reasonable and respectable distance if he did say so himself.

“You know I did feel a little something weird inside me earlier that probably could be the devil. Or it could be those really sketchy hot dogs Ned and I bought earlier from that vendor, so who knows.” On the grand scale of all the jokes he’s made that was really sub par. He didn’t even deserve a fake laugh from his own mouth for a joke like that.

“You’re pretty weird, you know that?” She told him, finally peeking back up from her book to look at him. 

“Well you know what the people say, weird is the new cool.” He countered back at her.

“No one says that.” She shut him down immediately, which okay, she wasn’t wrong but still. “And miraculously if there are people that actually __do__  say that there’s no way that they truly believe it.”

“Well being weird isn’t necessarily a bad thing.”

“Did I say that being weird was a bad thing?” She asked, and no Peter guessed she hadn’t actually come out and said that. “Being quote unquote __cool__  is a social construct anyway. Only there to make people look foolish and end up hating themselves when they don’t perfectly match up with the image put in their heads so they take it out on other people. I mean, look at Flash.”

That surprised a laugh out of Peter which in turn caused the slightest blink-and-you’ll-miss-it smile to touch at Michelle’s lips.

“I have my own theories on why Flash is the way he is, but I like yours. Sounds a lot more reasonable and logical than he was just born a giant dick.”

Michelle let out her own laugh at that, well not really an actual laugh more like a single __ha__ , a chuckle if you will. Whatever it was Peter would take it. It was probably the only time she’d laughed in his presence at something that wasn’t at his expense.

As the two of them lapsed into silence once more, this one significantly less awkward than the one before. It’s been a good minute since he’d been actually allowed to just sit down and relax. Listen to the sounds of his city. During their silence Peter realized something. This was the first time the two of them had actually spent any kind of time alone together. Usually Ned was always by his side or any of the other members of their decathlon team were present. He did consider the two of them friends, a very loose definition of the word, or at the very least friend _ _ly__  so that kinda surprised him. He found that he actually didn’t mind it so much.

* * *

The worst part about having only one close friend in high school, besides just being pathetic overall, was when said friend stays home sick and you realize how lonely your life truly is. During classes it’s not so bad because at least there you have something else to focus on and depending on the teacher, not much time to socialize anyway. When it all really hits you is at lunch. 

The sounds of the cafeteria were their usual jumbled mess of teenage excitement at high volumes where you could barely even hear your own thoughts. Usually Peter didn’t pay all that much attention but considering he only had the company of his said thoughts it was all suddenly a lot.

He’d considered taking his lunch in the library but only the really lonely and sad kids ate there. Nothing against them but Peter liked to consider himself maybe a bit of a step above social pariah territory. His other thought was that he could sit with one of the other guys from his decathlon team, but everyone seemed to run in their own social circles and he wasn’t desperate enough to put himself through that kind of awkwardness.

His eyes drifted over to his and Ned’s usual spot when he saw a head of increasingly familiar frizzed out brown hair sitting at the end. Face concealed by her latest book conquest.

Technically they did usually sit at the same table before, so it wouldn’t really be all that different if he were to sit there with her now. It wouldn’t really be all that out of the ordinary he’d just maybe shift a little to the right where she was. Plus after their little chat on the roof during their away trip for their last Meet of the Minds, Peter liked to think that they were inching closer to being some version of actual friends. At least he hoped so.

Just as he was setting his tray of food down about to take a seat Michelle asked “What are you doing?” Without even looking up at him. He was really starting to wonder how she always seemed to know it was him. Or maybe that was just her usual greeting whenever anyone came into her space.

Peter paused for a second half crouched in the middle of taking his seat on the bench. “Uh, sitting down?” It came out more like a question like it all hinged on her approval.

“I do have eyes and can see that.” But as she said this she still didn’t even bother to look up from her book at him so it kind of felt like a weird point to make. “I mean what are you doing here. You usually sit down at the the other end.”

Since it didn’t really seem like she was necessarily about to object to his presence, Peter continued the rest of the way down onto the bench, his thighs thanking him for the release from their strain. Being a radioactively spider bitten semi-superhero did come with perks like enhanced strength, but that was an uncomfortable position to stay in for anyone.

“I know,” He replied, for really a lack of anything at all better to say. “But since Ned’s not here I just figured...you maybe we could sit together?” Once again coming out like a question. There was just something about Michelle that made him feel so unsure of himself that he never knew exactly where they stood.

“So since your usual friend isn’t here to keep you company, you figured you would just sit with me like some sort of consolation prize lunch buddy?” This time she did look up from her book to stare at him, unamused.

“No! I mean,” Well yeah kinda for the most part yeah she was right. That is exactly what he was doing wasn’t it? “You know, partly true yes you got me there. But also!” What followed probably would have made a great sentence that would appease her if he knew exactly how to finish it. Which he did not. He wracked his brain for something to say but over and over just came up empty

After a few seconds of silence she finally had mercy on him. “Peter.”

“Yeah?”

“Man chill out I’m just messing with you, I don’t care where you sit.” She smiled, always seemingly at his expense he was starting to realize, and he glared at her. No real heat behind the look.

“Ha, ha, you know if you like jokes so much I think you should probably just become a comedian or something.” Peter told her, peeling the sticker left on his apple so that he could bite into it.

“Hey if my adventures into investigative journalism don’t work out I’ll make sure to keep that as a solid plan B.”

Peter took a second to consider her words. “You wanna be a journalist?” He asked, genuinely curious, putting his hand in front of his mouth as he continued to chew his apple.

“Well yeah,” She nodded, her already messy curls dropping down over her face even more than they already were. “There’s a lot of messed up shit going on in the world, Pete. Things that the media decides aren’t important enough to care or know about so instead they report on whether or not Captain America is dating anyone.”

She rolled her eyes and picked at her sandwich angrily with her free hand. Peter was about to comment when she spoke up again. “Excluding even the big stuff, like all the things going on with the messed up Sokovia Accords, which I have extensive thoughts on, but even the things going on right here and now. Innocent black and brown people are being murdered by the people who are supposed to protect them, and no one cares. People’s whole livelihoods are being snatched away from them by nameless men and women in black and they can’t do anything about it. No one talks about it because they either don’t know, or if they do know they’re too apathetic to say anything about it. It’s completely disheartening and downright disgusting and nothing will be done about it until we get off our asses and actually go out and __do__  something.”

Peter was sure if someone shoved a mirror in front of his face that he would see a stunned and stupid expression across it but he didn’t move to change it. He actually wasn’t quite sure that he even could if he did want to.

Her words kind of reminded him of that last conversation he’d had with Liz’s dad right before he’d dropped half a building on him. Peter hadn’t really cared what he’d been trying to say, just too preoccupied with the fact that he was a criminal who hurt a lot of people and needed to be stopped. It was weird and little bit uncomfortable for him to think about and had him wondering maybe hir moral compass was a little fritzy.

“What?” She snapped at him as he continued to remain silent and stare at her like a complete idiot.

“Nothing,” He whispered, then cleared his throat. “Nothing, I mean, that’s probably the most you’ve ever actually said to me in all the time that we’ve known each other.”

She stared back at him for a moment more before shaking her head and looking back down at her book. “Well it’s not like you go out of your way to try and socialize with me so. You’re always so busy with Ned, or you were doing your creepy stalker impression while obsessing over Liz.” She mumbled underneath her breath. “Whatever, just forget it though.”

He could tell that she was already mentally shutting him out and he had a very small and limited window before it was shut for good. She was right, the two of them rarely ever talked, like __really__  talked. All of their interactions were mainly just her making fun of him and Ned and that’s about it honestly. Which was why he found that he didn’t mind sitting and talking with her. They’ve known each other for years now and he didn’t even need all his fingers on one hand to count the things he knew about her.

“No it’s just, the way you think is interesting.” He really needed to have some king of note cards prepared beforehand whenever he knew he was going to talk with her because he always either had nothing to say or the things he did say made him look like an even bigger idiot than she probably thought he was.

“I mean, I like that you’re passionate about these kind of things because you’re right. There’s so much that goes on and everyone always says ‘oh don’t worry about that there’s people who handle that.’ but then those people are either too busy or like you say they just don’t care because it doesn’t affect them personally. If we all have the power to help someone out and we don’t do anything then that makes us just as bad as the people who don’t care.”

During his speech Michelle didn’t give any kind of indication that she was paying attention to him, but Peter could see that her eyes hadn’t moved at all on the page she was reading. There was a minute or two where neither of them said anything and Peter thought that maybe he should have just kept his mouth shut and taken his lunch in the library when the idea first popped into his head. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as he thought, he could be prone to a bit of exaggeration from time to time. Plus the librarian liked him well enough so that was a plus, right? What kind of plus he didn’t know but a plus was a plus.

“You wanna go to a protest with me this Saturday?”Michelle’s voice dragged him out of his thoughts.

“You wanna go to a protest? With me?” He repeated, not quite sure he heard her right the first time.

“No I was actually talking to the guy right behind you, looks kinda like you even has the same pathetic look on his face all the time.” She retorted, her voice full of it’s usual snark.

Peter put his hand over his chest like her words actually hurt him. Maybe in the past they might have held some actual sting but he was used to them for the most part now. "There’s really no need to butter me up with your generously kinds words, Michelle. I’ll go to the protest with you.”

She rolled her eyes at him again, this time with a smile touching at her lips, before dropping them back down so she could continue her book. The silence that followed was a comfortable one and Peter felt his own smile tugging at his lips as he ate the rest of his lunch.

* * *

Peter wasn’t quite sure what he would actively define “his element” as, but he wasn’t quite sure that this was it. He was standing quite literally in the middle of the street surrounded by groups of people chanting things that they all probably memorized and worked on together. From what he gathered using the context clues around him they all seemed to be protesting the mayor’s latest decision to cut back on health care reform. 

Which honestly, Peter knew nothing about. He kinda had his own things going on so he wasn’t really all that keyed into the goings on around him. Like he did pay attention to things considering that was technically his job to watch out for the people around him. Though he never really got into the whole politics of everything else happening as well. He guessed he just never really had to?

Michelle had texted him after school the details of everything and where they were going to meet. Peter had spent the whole night not exactly agonizing, but enough close to it, over things like what he should wear. Was there some kind of dress code he wasn’t aware of. He wanted to be pretty comfortable but like was there such a thing as too casual? Plus, Michelle had failed to mention what the protest was even for so he started to wonder if maybe the people would be able to tell his was a fake and try to run him off.

Now that he was actually in the midst of everything though Peter could tell that all that worrying he’d done was pretty much pointless. He say people wearing anything from business casual to the rattiest jeans and a t-shirt. Also no one came up to him and demanded that he swear his allegiance to the cause or whatever so that was a good thing too.

Peter checked his phone for probably the twenty-eighth time in the past five minutes, waiting to se if he got any kind of text from Michelle that she was here or not. He’d actually gotten there early and sent out the customary “ _ _I’m here__ ” text but she hadn’t yet responded.

There was a very small part of him that wondered if she would even show up at all. He wouldn’t put it past her to send him all the way out here alone as some sort of joke, he didn’t quite think he’d ever understand her humor.

But then Peter thought about just how passionate she’d been when she was talking to him at the lunch table and he didn’t think that she would do that. At least not about something like this.

“Don’t look so lost, Peter, people out here will take advantage of an innocent face.” Michelle’s voice announced her presence as she took her place next to him.

He turned to her, relief filling inside of him, to see her standing there and gave her a confused look. “What do you mean, take advantage of me? I thought this was supposed to be a whole unity ‘we’re all on the same side’ kind of thing.”

“And for the most part we are. I’m not talking some overly nefarious trick you into a deep dark corner of an alleyway type of thing.” She explained. “I just mean that a lot of these people love any excuse to hear themselves talk and one accidental eye contact with the wrong person and you find yourself stuck in a thirty minute conversation how we’re all one race man, the human race.”

For that last part she took on an exaggerated hippy voice before rolling her eyes and Peter couldn’t help but laugh.

“So how many times has that happened to you?” Peter asked.

“Never Peter, I’m so very obviously above all that.” She flicked her bangs out of her face dramatically. “No but when I first actively got into all of this around last year it may have happened once or twice. This one guy showed up to a Black Lives Matter protest and tried to expunge himself of all his white guilt because he’d voted for Obama twice.”

Peter tried to imagine a slightly younger Michelle trapped in that situation but he just couldn’t. He was just so used to seeing her so in control of herself and that around her. It was nice to see that she was just an awkward human being like the rest of us.

“Okay so tell me, how do these things usually go down? Are we trying to bring people into the cause or is it just the whole chanting in place thing?” Peter knew objectively what a protest what because didn’t everyone? But most of his knowledge came from things like movies or TV and not direct hands on experience.

“Dude it’s a whole lot more than ‘ _ _chanting in place__ ’.” Michelle told him. “Our mere presence is a statement that we back up with the words we say. It’s a call to arms in hope of enacting some kind of change. It may not happen today or even a month from now, it may actually never even happen in our lifetime. But I’d rather we say we tried and failed than sat on our asses and crossed our fingers that things will be different. Failed is maybe too harsh of a word, let’s say even if we enlighten one person out there that’s progress and it all adds up. ”

Peter stood silent as he watched Michelle talk, unable to stop himself from looking on in a bit of awe. The sheer amount of passion and conviction that weaved throw her words had him almost completely enamored. It was almost like seeing a different version of Michelle that he hadn’t even been aware of before. It was so obvious just how much all of this meant to her and he actually felt kind of honored that she wanted to share this with him at all.

Fingers snapping in front of his face drew him back. “Peter, you still with me? This may not be super exciting stuff but-”

“No!” He cut her off. “No it’s not that at all I was just thinking that it’s really cool that you wanted to show me all of this. It all really means a lot to you, I can see that.”

Michelle had an open look on her face, way more open considering her usual expression was a bit stand-offish and apathetic. Her face was almost soft as her eyes darted between both of his.

“So, uh, yeah, whatever you need me to do just say the word. I wanna do this right.” Peter told her when she didn’t say anything.

After another second or two a small smile that she didn’t even bother concealing appeared on her face. It was something so completely genuine that Peter wasn’t really used to seeing from her. He found that he kinda liked seeing her like that and he couldn’t help but smile back at her.

“There may be hope for you yet, my young activist-wan.” She said and they both snorted at how cheesy it was.

* * *

“Hey Peter!” A voice rang out in the still busy hallway and Peter turned away from Ned towards the voice. 

Michelle pushed past students in the crowded hallway, easily maneuvering herself between all the rapidly moving bodies with what looked like practiced ease until she stopped right in front of the two of them.

“Hey Michelle, what’s up?” He asked, shoving the rest of his books from his locker into his backpack.

“Yeah I just wanted to give you something, you actually left it at the protest.”

Peter searched his mind for what he could have possibly forgotten that was important enough that she felt she had to return it to him. His mind was coming up blank because he had his phone with him, and he hadn’t been stupid enough to bring his suit or doubly stupid enough to just leave it laying around. He watched as she searched vigorously through her back for whatever it was.

“Ah, got it.” And then she pulled out her middle finger and waved it at him with a wide smile on her face. She didn’t even wait for him to say anything or respond, just laughed as she walked backwards into the crowd before lifting her pointer finger off and giving him a weird kind of two fingered solute goodbye.

“Um, Peter, what’s that smile?” Ned asked beside him, reminding him that he was even there because for a guilty minute he’d actually forgotten they were mid conversation.

“What? What smile are you talking about Ned?” Peter asked turning his head back towards him and shoving the rest of his books into his bag.

“That smile.” Ned replied, and if it wasn’t obvious enough because it still hadn’t clicked for Peter, he raised a hand up and pointed it at his face. Finger just slightly edging on a little too close for comfort.

“What?” He repeated and looked down at said finger as if that would somehow help him see the smile Ned was talking about. He hadn’t even realized that he’d been smiling so he quickly schooled his expression and closed his locker, slipping the strap of his backpack over his shoulder. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Ned.”

“Dude, that wasn’t just a smile that was a __smile__.”

Giving him a sideways look, Peter pushed away from his locker and started to weave himself through the crowd of people, knowing Ned wasn’t too far behind. Maybe this once if he just kept walking without saying anything Ned would just let the whole thing drop. He really should have known better considering that the two of them had been friends for years now and he knew the guy better than he knew himself sometimes.

“Peter is there something you’re not telling me.” He asked, trying to lower his voice to sound all serious and suspicious but it really was only succeeding it making him sound like he had a cold. “I didn’t know you and Michelle even talked let alone went to __protests__  together. When did all that happen?”

“Ned it’s not even that big a deal, we’re just hanging out okay?” Peter tried to reason with him as the two of them pushed through the school doors and out of the school.

“Wait, like are we talking __hanging out__ , hanging out? Because dude when were you gonna tell me? Were you embarrassed or something? I guess I could see that considering it is Michelle, but I guess she’s kinda cute in the whole I-don’t-care-fuck-the-system kind of way if I really thought about it.”

“No, __no__ , Ned just stop.” To emphasize just how much Peter wanted that whole line of thinking to stop, and he very very much wanted it to, he took a step in front of his friend and put his hands out to get him to stop walking. “It’s nothing like that, she’s my friend. __Just__ my friend. She invited me to a protest and I went with her and we hung out but that’s __it__.”

Ned looked at him like he didn’t exactly believe him. “Even so, that doesn’t explain the smile.”

Hands spread in a confused gesture Peter gave him an exasperated look. “I don’t even know what smile you’re talking about.” He didn’t know why Ned was so obsessed with this smile. Did Ned keep some secret catalog of all of his different smiles that he didn’t know about. It would be severely creepy if he did, and the two of them would have to look into finding him a new hobby to focus his attention on.

“That was your Liz Smile.” And that definitely wasn’t what he was expecting him to say.

“‘My __Liz Smile__ ’? I don’t even know what that means Ned.”

“That’s the smile you would always give Liz whenever she would talk to you. Kinda dumb and hopeless, you know. Like a puppy.”

Peter just stared at him because he honestly didn’t even know how he was supposed to react to that. The fact that he apparently had a specific smile for his previous crush that his friend could pick up on; or the fact that he supposedly gave that smile to Michelle.

“Come on, no.” Peter shook his head in disbelief, resting his hands on the straps of his bag. That just didn’t make any sense. “No way, man.”

“Your words say one thing but my eyes saw something else, and I definitely saw that smile directed at Michelle, dude.” Ned clapped a hand down on his shoulder as if he was consoling him or something.

That just…no. It didn’t make any sense, the thought never even entered in the stratosphere of his mind to think about Michelle in that kind of way. They were literally __just__  becoming friends, sure he liked spending time with her when she wasn’t constantly insulting him. Maybe even during some of those times as well, but like, no way. He hadn’t really even thought about anyone like that since Liz left even though that had been months ago. He really blew his one chance there, sure the whole murdering evil bad guy for a dad didn’t grant him any favors either, but he knew some of the blame landed on he himself.

“I guess I should probably stop calling it your Liz Smile, huh.” Just when Peter was about to jump in and agree because, yeah buddy it was a little weird, Ned continued with a laugh. “I should start calling it the Michelle Smile now.”

Peter let himself be the source of his friend’s ridicule for a minute more before playfully shoving at his shoulder. “Just shut up, Ned.” And that only seemed to make him laugh even harder.

* * *

Peter knew that he should be paying attention to whatever his teacher was droning on about in the front of the classroom but his mind was otherwise occupied. He was making a few more tweaks to his web formula to increase the longevity of it but there was just something off that he couldn’t put his finger on and it was really bugging him. Also there was the fact that ever since his talk with Ned yesterday he couldn’t get Michelle out of his head 

It was just weird. All of it. Well, not that the idea of liking Michelle was necessarily a bad thing. Now that he could say that he’s spent some actual quality time with her he was enjoying having her around. And if he made himself think about it her frizzy hair was actually kind of cute and different than the sleekness of everyone else. Plus face wise you know, not bad at all either. The few times that he’d gotten to see her genuinely smile had been really nice because she did have a great smile. He wished that she would do it more often.

He’d just literally never thought about her in that kind of way at all. He never even thought about _ _thinking__  about her like that. So it was a bit of a shock to the system that suddenly he was thinking about her. Or at least entertaining the thought of thinking about her.

Everything was all just so confusing and he really hated Ned for even putting the idea in his head. This was all his fault.

The feeling of something light hitting against the side of his head brought him out of his thoughts and when he turned he saw a tiny folded up piece of paper landed on the side of his desk. His eyes scanned all the faces around him but no one seemed to be paying him any attention. Though he did take a moment to cast a suspicious glance in Michelle’s direction two desks to his right but she had her head bent forward as she took notes.

Peeking forward to make sure the teacher wasn’t looking, Peter quietly unfolded the tiny piece of paper.

__Your fly is wide open man._ _

Hands immediately dropped down between his legs a bit too eagerly because in turn he knocked his elbow pretty hard against the metal part of the desk. His gasp of pain drawing his teacher’s attention towards him as well as pretty much everyone else in the room. Which was fantastic.

“Is something wrong, Mr. Parker?” The teacher asked, which made Peter genuinely think about back flipping out of the closest window.

“Nope! Nothing wrong, all good over here.” He tried to smile, because smiles made people more inclined to believe you right?

Evidently it worked, or she didn’t feel like like giving him any more attention because she turned back to the smart board to continue her lecture. The people around him had the same idea because everyone quickly went back to minding their own business and pretending he didn’t exist.

Well almost everyone.

From the corner of his eye he saw shaking shoulders as Michelle barely tried to conceal her laughter. A hand covered her mouth to keep the sound from escaping.

Rolling his eyes Peter looked back down at the note sat open on top of his desk and remembered the whole purpose of what he was doing in the first place. Looking down ready to reach and fix his zipper he stopped.

Honestly, he was such an idiot. A gullible idiot because what he saw when he did look down was a zipper completely fine and exactly where it should be right below the button of his jeans.

Turning his head back to where Michelle was sitting, glare and unamused look ready at his disposal. Though when he did actually face her they both dropped. Because there on her face was probably one of the widest smiles he’d ever seen. Not one of her usual smirks or a sarcastic smiles either. If Peter had to think of a word to describe it he thought ‘beaming’ came pretty damn close.

She turned her head even more towards him and brought one of her hands up so that she could rest her chin in her palm. What would usually be a pretty casual gesture was coupled by the fact that all of her fingers were folded into a fist except her middle finger. That rested against her cheek only for him to see.

He felt his lips quirk up at their corners and in the back of his head he could hear a voice that sounded almost exactly like Ned’s saying: __Michelle Smile__.

Okay, so he might be in a bit more trouble than he thought.

* * *

“Hey Michelle wait up!” Peter called out to her rapidly retreating figure as he tried to gather up all his notebooks as fast as he could without spilling everything onto the floor. 

When he finally had his things together he saw that she actually listened and was leaning against the doorway waiting for him. Completely ignoring the inconvenienced students both trying to enter and leave the classroom.

He met her at the door and when he was within arms reached she turned around and left out the door. Peter took that as his cue to follow and walked along side her the best he could in the crowded hallway.

“Hey,” He said, altogether lamely because if he was being honest he wasn’t all that sure why he asked her to wait for him in the first place. The words were kinda out of his mouth before he could really think them through.

“...Hello?” She gave him a weird look as the two of them kept walking, which Peter realized was in the complete opposite direction of his next class but he didn’t mention it.

“So, uh,” He stammered with his usual eloquence. He already had enough trouble thinking up what to say in front of her so that he didn’t look like an idiot so his earlier thoughts - thanks’s again Ned - had him at even more of a loss.

“Are you malfunctioning or something because I hate to tell you, I left my doofus repair manual at home.” She cut in before he could think of what to say.

In a way that actually helped. The familiarity of her making fun of him took him out of his head for a bit so that he could start to resemble a human being again.

“You? Leave a book at home?” He questioned, his face painted with mock surprise. “I didn’t think that was even possible for you. I was sure you had some kind of secret compartment hidden away in your hair where you keep every book in existence.”

In response to that she stuck her tongue out at him and tried to make him trip over his own feet which just made him laugh.

“So what did you want, Parker?” She asked, reminding him that yes there was supposed to be an actual reason that they were walking together.

“Yeah,” He took a deep breath. “I was actually wondering if maybe if you weren’t doing anything you wanted to hang out? You know after school. Maybe watch a movie or something. With me.” Not the smoothest execution but overall he could have easily done much much worse.

While he was mentally patting himself on the back for a job done somewhat okay he hadn’t even noticed that Michelle had stopped walking so he had to double back to her.

There was an odd look on her face as she watched him silently. Peter couldn’t really figure out what that look was supposed to mean and tell him so he just stared back. His own expression open and a bit hopeful with his usual tinge of awkwardness.

When the silence dragged on a bit of panic started to seep into him. God, he really should have just kept his mouth shut and kept walking. This was all so stupid and for the millionth time that day he blamed Ned, though deep down Peter knew that it wasn’t really his fault. At least not completely. Ned was his best friend he really needed to stop thinking about him like that.

He just made everything all awkward all over again. They were gonna go back to square one of them not talking and barely acknowledging each other’s presence unless when necessary. And it just hit him now how much he really did __not__  want that to happen. It was nice to have someone his own age other than Ned to talk to and he liked the fact that it was Michelle who he was talking to. She was actually really funny and the fact that she was so passionate about the things she believed in meant something to him and he wasn’t ready to give all that up just yet.

Swallowing thickly Peter opened his mouth to apologize in case he overstepped his bounds or something when she finally said something.

“Is this like, you just asking me to hang out or…” She trailed off, her eyebrows furrowing a bit as finished.

For a two letter word ‘or’ never held so much implication. It was heavy with some kind of promise that meant a lot more than a word so small should carry.

“It could be just hanging out if that’s what you want. Or…” He himself trailed off with a shrug of his shoulders that he hoped came off as casual as he wanted it too. “Or…, it could be or.” He didn’t exactly know one hundred percent what he was trying to say with that but he still hoped that she got the meaning of it.

They both continued to watch each other for a minute and he knew that the bell for their next class would be ringing any second. The hallway was almost completely empty by now but he didn’t dare move even an inch.

“I don’t really feel like going out.” Which wow, that hurt a lot more than he was expecting it to. Maybe he could get a nurse’s pass from his next teacher so that he could lay down in one of the beds so that he could nurse his wounded ego. Or maybe if he concentrated just hard enough and believed with all his might, just maybe he could melt to the floor and just seep through the cracks.

“We could watch something at your house instead.” Wait what?

“You’re saying yes?” He asked confused and shocked for a minute because he just wanted to be completely sure.

“Yeah,” She nodded though it seemed like she was having her own realization that she actually said yes as well as convincing him.

“Okay.” He nodded along with her still a little bit shocked that she actually said yes. “We could meet up at the doors when school’s over and just… go from there I guess.”

“Cool,” She replied simply and without another word to him ducked her head down and walked past him to her class.

He watched her disappear down the hallway, a giddy smile overtaking his face. Turning back in the direction of his own class Peter couldn’t help but jump up and smack his hand against the archway, not even caring how much of a tool it made him look.

* * *

“Hey May, you in here?” Peter called out into the apartment as he unlocked the door and pushed it open, letting Michelle walk in ahead of him before locking it behind them 

With no answer to his call, Peter gave the apartment a quick sweep to see that it was indeed empty and the thought really hadn’t even really occurred to Peter that he and Michelle might be alone together. For a split second there was the thought of that possibility but having a possibility become an actuality was definitely something he should have thought more about.

But it was fine, this was cool. They might as well be in the arctic right now because things were so… cool.

Scratching at the back of his neck and looking pretty much everywhere except at the girl right next to him, Peter cleared his throat. “So, uh, welcome to Casa de Parker.” His free hand gestured to the small apartment around them. There wasn’t really much of a need for an official tour or anything considering that you could see everything that was to see right from where they were standing.

“It’s…cozy.” Michelle nodded next to him as she looked around, her hands wringing the handle on the top of her backpack.

“Yeah it’s home,” As exciting as standing in the front entryway was Peter thought that now was probably a good a time as any to make their way into his room. Considering it was his idea for the two of them to watch a movie and the fact that his laptop and TV were in there that seemed like a wise choice.

“Come on, my room’s this way.” He gestured with his head in the direction of his bedroom and lead her through the small living room into the hallway where the bathroom and his and his Aunt May’s rooms were.

When he was about to reach for the doorknob his mind piped up with the fact that he didn’t know if he had anything incriminating or spider related laying around for her to see. This hadn’t exactly been on his mind when he rushed out the door that morning so he hadn’t thought to clean up before he left.

Turning his back to the door and now facing Michelle, Peter offered her a sheepish smile that had her looking at him with narrow eyed apprehension.“Hey, so give me like two seconds okay? I just need too…,” Okay Peter think of something, anything. “I just need to make sure I didn’t leave any underwear laying around.”

Not even waiting for a response from her he blindly grasped at the doorknob behind him and pushed into his room, door shut firmly behind him.

“‘ _ _I need to make sure I didn’t leave any underwear laying around__ ’? God you - idiot!” Peter mumbled under his breath as he dropped his head into his hands. Literally anything else would have been better than that come on, Peter what is wrong with you? He wondered just how long he could hide away in his room before Michelle started to get impatient. She probably was already halfway out the front door after a stupid comment like that.

Eyes closed Peter took a deep breath and tried to calm both him and his thoughts down. He couldn’t go back and change what he said so he had no choice but to just follow thorough and move on.

Letting out a sigh Peter dropped his hands from his face and stood in the center of his room so that he could look around. Even without present company Peter usually tried to keep anything incriminating away from anyone who could just walk into his room. He’d had a lot of practice keeping the whole Spider-Man thing a secret from his Aunt May but ever since she found out he can admit he has gotten a bit lax with it.

His suit was tucked away in his bag so he didn’t really have anything to worry about like that being glaringly obvious. A few notebooks were laying around where he was working out the possible formulas for his latest web fluid upgrade but other than that he was actually pretty clear. There was yesterday’s underwear hanging on the outside of his hamper so it maybe it wasn’t a bad thing he did come in an underwear check. Still he wished that he hadn’t told Michelle about it, even if it technically now was true.

With a final sweep Peter decided that everything was in order so he went back to the door. One final deep breath left his nose before opening the door back up. Resting one hand against the doorjamb and the other on his waist but then quickly aborted that so that he could lean against it with his arms crossed over his chest. “Hey.” He breathed.

Michelle flipped her bangs out of her face and crossed her own arms over her chest in an overly casual move that had Peter raising his eyebrows. Huh, very interesting.

“So are you done making sure all of your Batman tighty-whities are put away?” She said, scrunching her nose up mockingly.

“You know, I’m actually a bit more of a Wonder Woman guy so.” He scrunched his own nose up at her in return and letting his arms drop down to his sides. He realized he was pretty much blocking the door so he stepped aside so that she could actually come inside his room.

Her footsteps were tentative before her curiosity seemed to got the better of her and she walked around with more confidence. Dumping her bag carelessly onto the floor she immediately went over to his desk and started rifling through the papers there.

“Hey, hey! Rude much?” He jumped over one of his beanbag chairs in the middle of his floor to reach her so that he could take his papers back. He grabbed everything within arms reach and held it against his chest looking at her like she lost her mind.

She snorted at his expression and stepped away from his desk and went over to one of the chairs, dropping heavily down into the squishy material. “So what are we watching?” She asked, head tilted to the side and waiting like he was the one holding everything up.

Shoving the papers into the drawers of his desk Peter went over to his bed so that he could grab his laptop. When he dropped down into the other available beanbag the momentum pushed his chair a bit closer to hers than it originally was. They both silently decided not to mention it while he powered on his computer. When the home screen appeared he very obviously turned the computer away from where she could see and typed in his password.

“Really? ‘ _ _Thor5611__ ’? Peter you seriously need to be a little more creative.” She snorted.

Jerking his head back to her his eyes widened. “How could you possibly have even seen that?” His voice rose a few octaves with the question so he cleared his throat.

“Oh, I already knew it.” She shrugged her shoulders, like her answer was the most obvious thing in the world and he should have known that already so why was he even wasting air to ask the question.

Okay maybe not that exactly, but whatever.

“You’re really not that hard to figure out.” She continued on. “Anyone paying you any attention could easily see that.”

Peter didn’t think that was necessarily true, come on, he was practically an Avenger for crying out loud that’s not simple at all like - wait. That last part.

“You spend a lot of your free time paying attention to me? I don’t know if I should be flattered or creeped out about that.” He joked with her, his leg reaching out to kick at the base of her beanbag.

“Shut up it’s not like I’m obsessed with you or anything.” She rolled her eyes as she used her hand to bat his leg away from her.

“Okay but that wasn’t exactly a denial so I’m thinking that __maybe__  you are a little bit, aw Michelle.” He cooed, self-satisfied smile stretched across his face as he laughed.

Instead of dignifying him with a reply she turned in her chair, not an easy feat either these things really sucked you in, and used both her legs to kick at him until he fell over. It probably helped that he was still laughing so he wasn’t trying all that hard to fight her off.

He laid down on the floor for a minute so that he could calm down his laughter. This, this is what he needed. He’d been so worked up with his thoughts running what felt like a million miles an hour. The stress from both his Spider-Man world and even the bit of stress with his maybe/maybe not feelings for Michelle it was nice to get out of his head. To be able to just relax with someone who he cared about and maybe felt the same.

“You know just for that little stunt you’ve lost your movie picking privileges.” He said, picking himself and his laptop up off the floor and getting comfortable once more in his chair.

“You wouldn’t be able to handle my movie choices anyway, so this is actually a pity win for you.” She argued but he wasn’t falling for her bait.

Opening up Chrome, Peter loaded up his usual site where he went to watch movies when he rarely had the time to do so and typed in the title.

“The Man From U.N.C.L.E.? Isn’t that some old TV show from like the sixties?” She asked, leaning over into his personal space when he finally finished typing and pressed enter.

“Yes it is, but also no that’s not what we’re watching. They adapted it into a movie a couple years ago and it’s actually really good.” Was his answer as he fought to keep his eyes on his screen and not peek over at how close she was. He instead focused on setting up the screen cast so that they’d be able to see what he was doing on his TV screen.

“We’ll see.” She said, leaning back in her own chair and putting space between the two of them once more. Her reply didn’t sound like she had too much faith in his movie choice but he didn’t worry about that too much. It was a fun movie that he thought even she could end up appreciating if she kept an open mind to it.

“Do you wanna keep the lights on or off?” He asked before he hit play. Since it was only afternoon there was still light outside so even if he did turn the lights off it wouldn’t be completely black out dark. He himself preferred to turn them off whenever he watched a movie because it helped him focus on it more since he couldn’t pay attention to everything around him. Since she was his guest though he felt he should leave the decision up to her.

“Off is good.” She nodded, her earlier playful tone now absent as she glanced over at him through her bangs. She slumped down into her chair, arms crossed over her chest and legs stretched out in front of her.

Peter made quick work of standing up and shutting them off before rejoining her on the floor and pressing play on the movie.

This wasn’t his first time watching this movie. He’d actually seen in in the theater when it came out with Ned and Aunt May so he didn’t need to give the screen his full attention. Instead as the opening sequence played across the screen Peter surprisingly found himself thinking about Liz.

The two of them hadn’t really kept in touch when she and her mom left for Colorado. He’d sent her the occasional ‘hey checking in to see how you’re doing’ texts every once in a while but that was pretty much the whole extent of their relationship now. He didn’t really blame her for not wanting to speak to him considering her last memory of him outside of when he’d said goodbye in the hallway was him ditching her at homecoming so that he could go stop her dad and put him in jail. The last part she didn’t know about and he didn’t want to offer up any lame excuse for why he ran away.

Though that wasn’t the reason his mind had drifted to her. Liz was his first honest and legitimate crush, his only experience really when it came to the whole romantic scene. She was so easy to like. She was just nice and super smart and all around just so great that liking her was a no-brainer in his opinion. He didn’t even have to think about it you just laid eyes on her and saw her smile and you were already hooked in.

Peter had gotten so used to liking someone like her he never really paid attention to any of the other people around him, and since she left he still never really paid anyone any kind of attention.

At least, until now.

As covertly as he could he peeked over at Michelle. She didn’t look like she was hating the movie which was a huge win in his book, but it was still early. Temporarily satisfied Peter rested his elbow in one of the indents of his chair, propping his head up with his palm and stared back at the screen.

Michelle wasn’t anything like Liz. They were both incredibly smart and he could also say that they both held the position of captain of their academic decathlon but that was where their similarities ended.

He wouldn’t necessarily call Michelle a nice person, but she wasn’t a dick like Flash was. Abrasive is a good word that comes to mind. He hadn’t really been a big fan of hers when the two of them first met in middle school but as they grew up together and stuck around in the same social groups and settings he’d gotten used to her and her personality.

She didn’t really smile much either, unless it was at his own expense or after a win at a competition. When she did smile though it was really cool and Peter liked seeing it. She had a really nice smile. Her smiles weren’t for everyone and and he liked the fact that they were something that he was of the very special few that got to experience. She was also really funny, something he hadn’t really known until recently because it seemed like only time he ever heard her talk was to answer a question or to make fun of him.

Now that the two of them were actually talking and spending time with each other there was so much that he was learning about her. Like he’d always known that she was smart, that was pretty obvious to anyone who knew her or even about her, but she wasn’t just ‘book smart’. Though she definitely had that on lock. She knew about so many things, things about people and things about the world that Peter hadn’t even really been thinking about. When she talked about them you could almost physically feel just how important they were to her and it made it feel like they should be important for you too.

Peter couldn’t exactly pin down the exact moment when things changed for him when it came to Michelle. With Liz it was almost instantaneous from the first moment he saw her he just knew. There wasn’t a moment like that for Michelle. He didn’t just wake up one morning and think to himself ‘hey you know who’s actually kind of cute and really funny? Michelle!’ He might be able to argue that the conversation with Ned shifted things into gear a little bit but all that would have already had to been brewing in his mind before that. Ned was just there to give him a bit of a kick start of sorts.

A snort of laughter had him focusing his attention back on the girl in question beside him and his face softened when he saw the small amused smile on her face. Peter noticed that she’d uncrossed her arms from before. One of her hands now sat in her lap while the other dangled off the side of the chair in the space between the two of them.

Now that he was aware if it, Peter’s senses decided to almost hyper focus on that hand. It wouldn’t really take much at all for him to just drop his own hand down beside hers and brush against her fingers with his own.

He’d never really held hands with anyone, at least not in that way. He’d never really done pretty much anything with anyone so this was all very much new territory for him. He still wasn’t sure if he could say that he’d been on an actual date just yet. He didn’t think that he could consider going to homecoming with Liz as a date since he didn’t really spend any time with her at the actual dance since he just up and left. He didn’t even know if __this__  was a kind of date or not. They didn’t really clarify anything after that initial conversation in the hallway.

He glanced quickly down at her hand again to check and see if it was still there and yup, still chilling right there without a care in the world.

Peter lifted his head up off his hand so that he could stretch his arms out in front of him as casually as he could. Not wanting to draw too much attention to himself so that she got distracted and pulled her hand away. When he was done he set both his hands in his lap and tried to focus on the movie again. If he hadn’t already seen the movie before he wouldn’t have been able to register anything that was happening on the screen in front of him. He just let it all wash over him, indulging himself in a quick one second peek back down at her hand again.

Maybe she wanted him to reach out and do something? Or maybe she wasn’t even aware that her hand had even dropped down to her side. Just an absentminded shift in position you paid no attention to while your mind was otherwise occupied.

Even if it was though that didn’t stop him from wanting to reach out and as the time went on the idea became even more pressing inside his head. His inner voice psyching himself up.

__Do it, come on just do it. Just reach out and do it. Go for it. It’s right there just go on._ _

His heart was starting to beat more noticeably in his chest and he wanted press against his chest in hopes of it chilling out but that might be a little too obvious.

Sucking in a deep breath and not taking his eyes off the screen Peter let his hand closest to Michelle slip down between them and rest against the floor. Keeping it to himself for now while he tried to work up the courage to drag it along the rest of the distance. He let it sit there until the scene on the screen change then as carefully and as swiftly as he could he reached out and brushed their knuckles together. The earlier breath he sucked in rushing out of him.

She didn’t move her hand away from his but he couldn’t face her just yet, instead keeping his eyes deadlocked on the TV screen. After a few moments more he felt bold enough to actually hook his middle and pointer finger around hers, just shy of actually holding her hand for real.

“What are you doing?” She whispered and he finally turned his head to look at her. She always seemed to be asking him that.

She wasn’t looking at him though. Instead looking down at their hands and fingers that were locked together between them.

“I’m… trying to hold your hand. Is that weird?” He whispered back, watching her face for any sign that she was uncomfortable.

“Kinda, yeah.”

And with that he immediately pulled his hand away from hers and back over to his side. “Sorry.” He apologized, grimacing down at his lap. How he continuously ended up in these kind of situations feeling like this he’d never know.

He hoped that maybe they could at least finish watching the movie together and that he hadn’t made her too uncomfortable that she wanted to just up and leave right away. He guessed he was the only one that read a bit too much into that ‘or’.

The feeling of knuckles brushing against his against his had him looking down at the space between them again and there he found her hand once again pressed against hers. He watched silently almost captivated as she used her pointer finger to wrap around his, hooking them together and pulling his hand back closer to her.

“I said it was weird, I didn’t say you had to stop.” She pointed out sneaking a glance over at him before turning her head back towards the screen.

Relief as well as almost giddy happiness washed over him like standing underneath a waterfall as he looked over at her. A slow and soft smile gradually widened across his face when his eyes dropped down to look at their hands again.

“Listen don’t make a huge deal out of this okay? And stop smiling at me like that you look like such a dork.” There was probably supposed to be some kind of hidden warning in her tone but he couldn’t focus on any of that right now.

Smile not dimming whatsoever, Peter used their hooked fingers so that he could flip her hand over. His fingers now filling up the empty spaces between hers. Palm pressed to palm he let his hand close gently around hers. The only response he got from her was her fingers pressing against the back of his hand, locking them together even more.

She was right, it was a little weird, at least at first, but he could see why people did it. It was pretty cool actually.

The two of them stayed like that, hands locked together as the rest of the movie played out. Michelle even surprising him by squeezing his hand during one of the climactic scene towards the end and he found himself squeezing back as reassurance. Even when the end credits started to play across the screen the two of them still didn’t let go.

When the screen finally went black, Peter used his free remaining hand and exited out of the full screen, lighting the room a bit more so that it wasn’t as dark as before. For which he was glad because the atmosphere felt a little less heavy now.

“So…,” He trailed off. His position shifting in his seat so that he was facing Michelle, doing his best not to disturb their hands. “What did you think? I understand if you’re blown away by my totally awesome taste in movies and need a second to gather your thoughts.”

She rolled her eyes before leveling him with what she probably thought was an unamused look but Peter saw the corners of her lips twitching upwards. Like she was actively trying not to give him the satisfaction of her smile. That’s okay he’d get one out of her sooner or later. “Well it wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever seen. The cast was overwhelmingly white and the story line a little predictable but it had it’s moments.” She answered

“You know what, that’s not bad at all I’ll still take it.” He was just glad that she didn’t outright hate it completely so her saying that was a check in the win column for him.

“I’m just glad you didn’t put on one of those terrible and generic neanderthal racing movies where the women have no characterization and are paraded like props right along with the cars.” She grimaced like just thinking about it caused her actual pain.

“Honestly I pegged you for such a hardcore Fast & Furious fan so I’m pretty shocked to hear you say this right now.” He pressed his lips together and shook his head like he couldn’t believe it.

“I would rather have my fingernails ripped off one by one then be forced to eat them than sit through one of those movies ever again.”

“Dramatic much?” Peter raised his eyebrows over at her in surprise letting out a small laugh at the completely serious look on her face.

“Not at all. If anything I’m actually underselling just how much I hate those movies.” Her head shook back and forth once to convey just how much she meant her words.

“That’s too bad because I was just about to put the last one on right now as we speak.” He made a show of reaching his free hand towards the keys of his laptop still in his lap.

“Peter.” Her voice so full of warning that it actually paused for a second, but it didn’t stop him completely as he one finger touched at the F - A - S - T keys.

“Peter.” She repeated and her looked at her with the most innocent face he could muster up while his pointer finger hovered over the ‘&’ symbol. “Peter you put one of those movies on and I will end you, and not the plain and simple __end you__ , end you. End you so hard any you in an alternate universe out there will feel it and all the future Peter Parker Jr.’s that never will get the chance to be are gonna feel it. People who’ve never even met you and know absolutely nothing of your existence are somehow gonna feel it like a shock wave expanding throughout the earth.”

Peter wasn’t quite sure the appropriate response to a threat so vivid should be, but he was fairly certain that it wouldn’t be to smile. Then again since when has Peter taken the most appropriate route anyway, plus it was completely overrated. At least that’s what he told himself as he felt his lips slowly quirk up into what he was sure was one of the dopiest smiles to ever exist but honestly, he didn’t care.

“I just told you I’m going to end you and you’re smiling?” Michelle looked at him like he’d lost his mind and maybe he did, it would make a lot of sense or maybe not. He wasn’t really thinking all that straight at the moment. “Maybe I should check and see if any screws came lose because you’re acting so weird right now.

She reached her other hand out that wasn’t still wrapped up in his, and an errant thought in the back of his mind reminded him that this was the longest he’d ever touched anyone. Let alone a girl. Well a girl who wasn’t his Aunt May because she very much didn’t count in a situation like this. Both their hands were starting to get a little sweaty and it should be gross but somehow it wasn’t, he didn’t pretend to understand.

Anyway he was off on a tangent, her hand reached out as if to check underneath the waves of his hair to see if any of his said screws were loose and he batted her hand away playfully, laughing at her as he did.

Michelle’s eyes narrowed at him, her brown irises almost completely hidden from him as she sussed up his challenge. Well not that he’d been challenging her but she seemed to take it as one. The image of a cartoon bull about to charge at a matador pooped into his head which surprised an obnoxious snort out of him and impossibly so Michelle’s eyes narrowed even further.

Without warning Michelle darted forward once more to take a swipe at his hair but thanks to his enhanced reflexes he blocked her attempt once more. “Hey, cut it out will you?” He continued to laugh though so she didn’t take his request all that seriously.

“Why, what are you hiding something under there Peter?” This time she did successfully sneak forward and muss up his hair so that some of it fell in front of his eyes.

“No, you weirdo, I feel like this is a completely normal reaction when someone is trying to attack my hair.” He continued to fight off her advances until she eventually got tired or just bored and relaxed back into her chair.

“Whatever, you wuss.” She breathed out a lightly breathless laugh,

“A wuss who’s hand you’re holding though.” He pointed out and for a second he kinda wished he hadn’t. He was sure she hadn’t exactly forgotten that she was in fact still holding his hand but part of him was afraid that since he called attention to it now she’d pull away and it would be over. Once this ended he didn’t know when he’d be able to hold her hand again. Was there a time limit on how soon was too soon? Should he wait a few days before trying again or was that too much time? This was all so confusing.

“Yeah and it’s really warm and kinda sweaty. I feel like my its post gym class and someone sat on my hand before I got a chance to pull it off the bleachers.” Okay, gross mental image for sure. But he did notice she didn’t make any moves to pull her hand away so it must not bother her that much.

“Yeah but I think you like it.” He teased feeling suddenly bold, and he was happy to note that there was enough light in the room to see some pink spread across her nose and cheeks. Michelle was a blusher, wow. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do with this information but he swore that he would never let it go to waste.

“You’re an idiot.” Was her only reply but Peter wasn’t focused on her words he was more focused on the tiny peek of a smile that rested on her face before she turned away from him.

He was just about to comment on it when a knock at his door and the sound of his Aunt calling for him startled them both. “Hey Peter who are you in here talking t- oh!” She hadn’t even waited for a response from him - which rude what if he was naked or something - before just pushing the door open and coming right in.

He and Michelle both immediately dropped each other’s hands but Peter knew that his aunt had already caught sight of them by the raised eyebrow she shot in his direction.

“Oh,” She repeated, drawing out the word a lot longer than it needed to be. “Peter I didn’t know you were having company.” Her tone fully held the underlying meaning of ‘we’re gonna have a little chat about this later, buddy.’

“Um, yeah.” He sat up straighter in his chair looking from Michelle, who had tucked both her hands between her thighs as she stared at him uncertain, and his Aunt May. “This is my…” Big freaking question mark there and now wasn’t the time to fill in the appropriate blank so he went with the safest bet. “…fiend Michelle, she goes to my school.”

“It’s very lovely to meet you Michelle. I just brought a pizza home for dinner there’s plenty to go around if you wanted to stay. Two against one so maybe we can surely fight Peter off so he wont eat it all.” She laughed and Peter closed his eyes for a second and contemplated spontaneous combustion.

“Thanks Ms. Parker but actually I should probably be getting home now. My dad’s expecting me.” She replied, reaching for her bag and standing up slowly.

Peter got to his feet as well so that he could walk her to the door. He was overly aware of how much distance was kept between the two of them since he knew May was watching them even though she was pretending that she wasn’t.

“So, uh, I’ll see you at school tomorrow?” He asked, even though he knew that he would. Kinda hard to miss with them being in the same grade and most of the same classes and all.

“Yeah.” She nodded stiffly and Peter wished that their afternoon wasn’t ending as awkwardly as it was. They’d been on such a roll before all this. “See you tomorrow.”

He watched her open the door and step out into the hallway before disappearing altogether from his sight.

* * *

Peter finished brushing his teeth, doing a thorough job of getting rid of all the garlic taste in his mouth. He spat the remaining toothpaste into the sink before standing up again. Though his heart almost jumped out of his chest when he saw Aunt May’s reflection in the mirror considering it wasn’t there two seconds ago 

“Jeez, what are you trying to give me a heart attack?” He asked, wiping the toothpaste residue from the corner of his mouth.

The two of them had been getting ready for bed, both already in their pajamas. Peter had considered himself lucky that she hadn’t outright brought up the Michelle topic though he felt like he’d been sitting on pins and needles just waiting. For a split second he thought maybe they wouldn’t actually need to talk about it at all.

Oh how naive he was.

“So Michelle seems nice.” Her comment was nonchalant but Peter knew it was only leading into something more.

“Sure, yeah she’s nice.” ‘Nice’ wasn’t exactly a word he’d use to describe Michelle but he didn’t really think that that was an important fact to bring up.

“You know Peter, I’m not sure I’m all that comfortable with you sitting alone with girls in your room in the dark when I’m not here.”

“Oh my god,” He muttered under his breath and closed his eyes. “May it wasn’t even like that, nothing happened.”

“So I didn’t see the two of you holding hands? I know I wear glasses but I’m not blind.”

“Okay so yeah we were holding hands, but it still wasn’t like that.” He swore, opening his eyes back up again.

“Peter look, it may be hard to believe but I was your age once-”

“I don’t like where this is going.” He cut in but she ignored him.

“I remember how exciting it all was to be alone with someone you liked. There was actually this one guy Gary Brewer-”

“Please stop.”

“His parents had gone out of town so he invited me over to his place and I remember being so nervous because I never hung around guys before-”

“I really don’t wanna hear this.”

“It was all so exciting though and I remember him taking me up to his room-”

“I’m literally begging.”

“He was a really good kisser. A little too much tongue for my taste bit I didn’t have any experience back then-”

“I’m honestly about to hang myself with the shower curtain.”

“Peter stop being so dramatic and listen to me.” She told him, her voice with soft seriousness wrapped up in it’s tone that he sighed and kept his mouth shut.

“Anyway you’re young and I know everything can be overwhelming and new and scary but also exciting too. I just want you to know that you can talk to me about anything, okay?”

“Okay.” He mumbled his promise, eager for this whole conversation to be over.

“Even sex stuff.” She added. “You don’t have to be shy.”

Peter clenched his eyes shut his stomach churning, the earlier pizza not agreeing with his embarrassment. “I appreciate it, but honestly, it really isn’t like that.”

He felt hands cup his cheeks and when he opened his eyes May smiled. “Do you like this girl?” She asked him. A hand reaching up to brush an errant strand of hair off of his forehead and back in place.

Well isn’t that the million dollar question?

“No, I mean, maybe?” He shrugged his shoulders while he searched himself for the right answer. “I don’t know yet I’m still trying to figure it out, but I think so?”

“Oh honey.” Was all she said as she pulled his head forwards so that she could press a kiss against his forehead and suddenly he felt like a five year old all over again.

Eventually she did let go of him and the two of them made their way out of the bathroom and into their respective rooms. Right before he could close his door though May called out to him again.

“Oh and Peter, no more having girls over without at least telling me first though, alright? Night, love you!”

* * *

 

 If Peter was being honest with himself he could safely admit that he was nervous as he changed into his gym clothes in the boy’s locker room the next day. It was the first class that he actually had with Michelle so it would be the first time he actually got to be around her since her leaving his apartment last night. 

He really should have just texted her, it was just now occurring to him that he still had her phone number in his phone. He hadn’t ever used it besides that day of the protest because he never really had to so it just slipped his mind. It probably would have saved him from all this nervousness had he just texted her something stupid, even just to make sure that she got home okay. Come on, Peter.

“Alright guys, lets go and get this over with.” His gym teacher called out, ever enthusiastic as usual.

Peter took his place beside Ned as the two of them filtered out of the locker room and into the gymnasium. The air around them was split fifty-fifty between the overeager jocks ready to burn off their excess energy and pretty much everyone else who were only there because they’d detention for skipping.

Peter used to really hate gym because he was never the most athletic kid. His Aunt and Uncle had signed him up for little league when he was younger but he never really cared for it. Now though the reason he hated it was completely different. He had all these wild amounts of strength and with his abilities he should have been having the time of his life. But he couldn’t use any of that because then that would lead to questions that he wasn’t prepared to answer just yet. He knew that someday he wouldn’t be able to put it off anymore, but for now if he had to exaggerate a few push ups so be it.

“So I’m thinking after school we can flesh out my whole Man in the Chair persona.” Ned cut in through his thoughts.

Peter gave him a sideways look. “What are you on about, Ned?”

“Peter I could be doing so much more, you know? Like that night of homecoming it was so badass. You were out there kicking butt and taking names and I was in your ear like boom, bam, go here, go there, look out, ah!” Ned supplied his own sound effects and Peter rolled his eyes at his friend’s theatrics.

“Ned I know this seems all fun and games, but this is actually some serious and dangerous work I’m doing.” Peter argued as they waked through the halls.

“Didn’t you tell me last week how you spent the night setting up and programming this old lady’s barbecue?” Ned eyed him incredulously.

“Well… yeah, but,” His voice cracked because he __did__  have a point. “It’s not all old ladies and barbecues did you forget that Captain America literally dropped and airplane walkway on me? That wasn’t cool.”

“Stop lying you know that’s totally cool, and okay but did you die? You lived, got to meet a damn legend, __and__  you fought on the same side as Tony Stark. Freakin Iron Man!” Ned continued on. “Peter the most exciting thing I’ve got going for me are my legos, buddy I need this!”

Peter sighed as he stared at the elaborate puppy dog eyes Ned was trying to wear him down with.

They all filed into the gym and spread out amongst themselves and from the corner of his eye Peter saw that the girls were starting to enter from the opposite side of the room. His heart picking up a funny beat when he saw a familiar face walking towards the bleachers and plopping themselves down. Well not so much her face as he saw a book pressed against said face, wild hair the only discernible feature but still he knew exactly who that was.

“Alright guys, have free time or whatever I don’t care, just don’t injure yourselves because then you’re inconveniencing both me and you.” Their gym teacher called out before going over to the exit doors and sit in a chair conveniently already placed there.

Everyone around them split off into their own groups, leaving Peter and Ned standing off to the side by themselves.

“So I was thinking I should have a code name or something, you know? Like in case you need to talk to me and there are other people around? What do you think of ‘Red Hawk’? Simple right, but also badass at the same time.” Ned tried to continue on with their previous conversation but Peter was only really half listening to him.

Instead his eyes were glued pretty longingly at the empty seat next to Michelle on the bleachers. Alternating from the seat itself to the girl sat next to it. For the first time Peter noticed that whenever Michelle was super focused on something she was reading or drawing that she would chew at the corner of her mouth. He wondered if she was even aware that she was doing it. His stare was probably borderline into creep territory so he should probably stop. He wanted to go over there and sit next to her. He should go over there. He was gonna go over there.

“Yeah, yeah, sure Ned sounds awesome.” Peter answered absentmindedly before quickly turning back to Ned. “Since we’re not doing anything I’m gonna go over and sit on the bleachers, you coming?”

It most likely would have helped salvage some of his cool if he had actually waited for any kind of response before already taking off in that direction, but it was too late now.

Belatedly Peter heard the confused sounds coming from Ned as he made his way over to where Michelle was seated. Climbing the seats instead of the steps hit feet took him higher and higher until he got to her same level.

“Hey,” He greeted, smiling awkwardly at her even though she hadn’t looked up at his approach.

“Ned. Peter.” She briefly looked up from her book at the two of them and if her eyes softened and lingered on Peter for a second longer than necessary nobody commented on it. At least externally. Internally the tightening feeling in his stomach spoke up for him.

Peter wasn’t oblivious to the subtle, well subtle for Ned’s standards, looks that Ned was giving him as he took a seat backwards on the step right below his and Michelle’s. There wasn’t really anything remotely subtle about the confused raised eyebrows he was shooting in their direction.

Now that he was actually within arm’s reach, Peter could see that what he thought earlier was a book is actually one of those Moleskin notebooks. Given from the pencil in her hand as well as the other one in her hair it looked like she’d been drawing.

“So,” Peter started, ignoring his friend completely. “Whatcha drawing?”

He leaned a little to the side so that he could take a peek at the notebook. With the movement their shoulders were just barely brushing against one another’s and he was more pleased than he aught to be when she didn’t shift or push him away. It might have been his imagination but he could have sworn that he even felt her press back gently.

“I’m drawing myself being pulled apart by my arms in legs by wild horses because that seems like a whole lot more entertaining than sitting here doing nothing.” She deadpanned, turning the notebook away from him so he couldn’t see and gave him a playfully threatening look. He was starting to get better at telling when she was joking or not.

Coincidentally though her turning the notebook away from him put it in Ned’s line of sight so while she was distracted he snuck a look at the pages.

“That actually looks a lot like Peter, I don’t see you anywhere. Unless that’s supposed to be your han-”

“Shut up and mind your business, Leeds.” She snapped, promptly closing her notebook shut and carefully avoiding Peter’s eyes. Which was probably a good thing at the moment because had she looked at him she would have seen the stupid smile beginning to form on his face. If she had seen it she probably would have pinched him or something.

Though it would probably be worth it in the end because that all had to mean that she was thinking about him too, right. That maybe this whole whatever they were doing didn’t only mean something to just him.

He could sense though that she was a little uncomfortable and knowing Ned he was bound to comment on the drawing again because he never let anything go.

“So I totally didn’t study at all for the test in Mrs. Rodriguez’s this Friday.” Peter interrupted, quickly trying to change the subject and distract the two of them. His attempt was obvious which prompted the two of them to look at him with various looks. Ned’s was one of light annoyance because he no doubt was about to talk about the drawing again. Michelle’s wasn’t anything overtly blatant but Peter thought that maybe there was a hint of gratitude in there.

Michelle took the subject change in stride, breezing right into it like this was her whole intention all along. “If you’d actually go to class everyday then maybe you’d already know a majority of the information already.” She eyed him pointedly and Peter may have shrunken his posture just a little but under her gaze.

Okay his plan was starting to backfire a little bit but maybe he could still come out ahead.

“Hey, I go to class. It’s just…things come up.” He shrugged a shoulder while trying to keep his cool.

Michelle rolled her eyes like she didn’t believe him, which he didn’t really blame her for because he really needed to learn how to sell his excuses better.

“You quit band ages ago, you haven’t been going on and on about your Stark internship lately so I guess it’s safe to assume that you quit that too. You’re lame enough to only have one friend.” Peter and Ned both made sounds in protest. “So I’m not really seeing where these important ‘ _ _things__ ’ are.”

“Maybe there are just some __things__  that you don’t know about me.” This was dangerous territory and he needed to be careful.

Michelle scoffed and looked at him, her lips pursed in disbelief. “Oh please, you’re an open book Peter, you couldn’t keep a secret to save your life.”

Ned let out an embarrassingly loud half snort half laugh with an added “Yeah, shows how much you know.” at that before schooling his features and turning his head to the side and leaning back casually like it never happened.

Michelle turned her gave onto Ned and eyed him suspiciously while at the same time Peter widened his eyes at his friend to get him to keep his mouth shut. When she looked back over at him Peter adopted his own overly casual posture. One hand on his waist while the other leaned back against the stair right behind them.

He knew that he was being weird and the look she gave him clearly reflected that she agreed. “Anyway,” She shook her head slightly like she didn’t have the patience or sanity to react to the two of them. “If you want, we could stay after in the library and go over my notes from class. If you fail they’ll start pulling you from decathlon practices and its already hard enough to deal with Flash’s mouth as is without you adding that fuel to the fire.”

That sounded like a really good idea in Peter’s mind. He’d be able to get the material he did actually need and he’d be lying if he said that he didn’t want to spend time and talk with her some more. He really enjoyed the place they were at in his room the night before, even without the hand holding though that was a major plus, and he wanted to see more of that. Figuring things out might be a little easier with more moments like those.

“Peter you can’t, remember we have that thing to do after school?” Ned cut in and both he and Michelle turned towards him.

“Thing?” Peter asked completely clueless.

“Yes, the __thing__ , remember?” Ned answered not at all helpful.

“What thing?” Michelle asked, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“Come on, Peter. The thing! The thing I was telling you about just earlier. __Red Hawk__.”

Realization dawned on him as Michelle looked even more confused.

Peter turned back to Michelle with an apologetic wince on his face. “I did promise Ned I’d let him help me out with something after school. We can do our study session in the library tomorrow maybe?”

“Yeah that wasn’t shady or suspicious at __all__.” Her sarcasm wasn’t wasted on him nor was the disappointment he could hear in her voice as well. She looked away from the both of them and back to the still closed notebook in her hands. “Whatever Peter, it’s your grade not mine.”

Now he felt like crap because she was really only trying to help him out and he was just brushing her off without even a good reason for her. He looked at her helplessly. Not for the first time he regretted this whole secret identity thing, thinking it would just be a whole lot easier for him and everyone else if he just came clean about him being Spider-Man. He felt like he was letting Michelle down and he hated the thought of doing so.

Just then their gym teacher blew his whistle and called everyone back to the locker rooms to go change. Without another word or a glance Michelle stood up from the bleachers and walked away from the two of them towards all the other girls who were also leaving.

Peter watched her go silently with a dejected look on his face before closing his eyes and flopping forward with a groan that was both annoyed and self pitying.

Thankfully Ned didn’t say anything to try and cheer him up, just patted him on the shoulder sympathetically and stood up. Waiting silently for Peter to get himself together so they could walk back to the locker room.

* * *

Peter felt his phone vibrate in his pocket just as he was gathering his things from his locker at the end of the day and when he pulled it out he saw a familiar number and a text. 

When he opened the message he saw four image attachments and upon further inspection he saw that they were notes. Notes from the same class that he needed for the test on Friday 

Notes that he knew were in Michelle’s handwriting.

A hopeful smile pressed at the corners of his mouth. He could still fix this.

* * *

“Ned-” Peter started but was cut off by a loud overly exaggerated throat clearing in his ear and he rolled his eyes 

“ _ _Red Hawk,__ ” He didn’t even have to see Ned’s face to know that he was beaming. “I think I’m gonna tell Michelle that I’m Spider-Man.”

“ _ _Dude, what?__ ” Ned yelled a little too loudly into his earpiece. “ _ _Why would you even think about doing that?__ ”

Peter used his web shooters to swing himself across to another rooftop, landing easily on the balls of his feet.

“I just, I really hate lying to her, you know? She deserves to know the truth.” Carefully he walked along the ledge of the roof. Keeping an eye out for anything out of the ordinary.

“ _ _Does this have anything to do with you hanging out and liking her all of a sudden or do you wanna tell her because you want her to know?__ ”

Peter shrugged his shoulders even though Ned had absolutely no way of seeing him right now. “Why can’t it be both? Maybe I do want her to know because I like her but I don’t think that it’s a bad reason to tell her.”

He kicked at a lonesome pebble and watched as it dropped of the side of the building and bang against a dumpster down below. “I just screwed things up so badly when it came to Liz, I don’t wanna have a repeat of that. Michelle doesn’t deserve that. Not that Liz deserved that either but you know what I mean.”

“ _ _You’re really serious about this, huh?__ ”

“Well, yeah. I have to do this the right way this time.”

Ned was silent for a moment and if Peter couldn’t still hear his quiet breathing he might have wondered if somehow the connection got dropped.

“You still with me, Red Hawk?” Peter asked, a little worried what he was thinking.

“I’m still here, I’m just resigning myself to the fact that I’m gonna be stuck as the perpetual third wheel now.” Ned sighed and Peter couldn’t help but let out a breathless laugh, both in relief and at his friend’s dramatics.

“Don’t be like that, you’ll always be my number one. You’re my guy in the chair after all.” Peter reassured him sincerely. Though the whole thing didn’t exactly turn out the way that he envisioned he really was glad that Ned knew his secret now. It was really lonely and stressful having to keep it all bottled up inside all the time. He was probably more grateful than Ned even fully realized.

Peter used his web to glide across the next two buildings before balancing himself on top of a billboard.

His eyes gave a sweep of his surroundings, trying to see if it was worth his time to stick around or move on in case someone somewhere else needed him. His eyes landed on a pair of men on top of a shorter apartment building across the street from him. The discussion didn’t look like it was a necessarily pleasant one so Peter thought he may as well break it up.

“Alright, Red Hawk, things might be getting a little interesting shortly so stand by.”

Swinging his webs Peter landed on the roof a few feet away from the men. The sound of his feet dropping down onto the gravel of the roof alerted them of his presence.

“Hey guys! This looks really cozy, such a nice spot up here right.” He called out to them, his stance was relaxed bu that could easily change at a moment’s notice.

“Who the hell are you supposed to be?” One of the guys asked, the more aggressive of the two considering he had the other guy pressed up against the wall by his neck.

Peter knew he hadn’t quite reached his supreme Avenger status even though he was now officially/unofficially part of the team, but he figured people still had some vague idea who he was.

“Spider-Man.” Peter pointed to his mask then gestured to the spider symbol on the center of his chest. “You know, crime stopper and all around super cool guy. Ringing any bells?”

“I don’t actually care who the hell you are, why don’t you go fuck off and mind your own business.” Well that just wasn’t very polite.

“You see, I would, but I can’t say I’m all too fond over the way you’ve got your friend there by the neck, so you see my issue.”

“This piece of shit ain’t my friend, he owes me money and I don’t have any more time to waste with his games.” Mr. Aggressive said, tightening his hand even more around the other guy’s neck and Peter knew he had to do something quick.

“Have you tried PayPal? If I don’t have cash on hand that’s usually how I try to smooth things out it’s really a lot easier than all of this.” As slowly and as steady Peter took a step toward the pair, trying not to spook Mr. Aggressive into doing anything drastic.

“Listen kid, I ain’t askin’ you again so you better fuck off now while I’m still feeling generous.” He turned towards Peter slightly and that’s when he saw the knife in his hand and he took that as a good a time as any to move.

“ _ _Peter, what’s going on?__ ” Ned whispered harshly in his ear.

“Gimmie a second.” Peter answered before first shooting web at the guy’s face to disorient him and then going for the hand wrapped around knife so he couldn’t lash out.

Peter then connected another web to the guy’s face and tanked forward so that he collapsed hard face first onto the ground. The only sound he let out was a painful groan but he didn’t otherwise move.

Letting out a breathless sigh Peter held himself together long enough to walk over to the other guy still standing there. His eyes looked panicked and he still hadn’t yet moved away from the wall, instead just staring down at the fallen man in front of him.

“Hey man, you’re okay now he’s not gonna hurt you anymore.” He tried to assure him but it didn’t look like his words were having their desired effect.

Walking over towards him, Peter reached a hand out, his intention to lay it reassuringly on his shoulder but evidently that was the wrong move to make.

The guy jerked forward, charging forward into Peter who wasn’t expecting the move in time to do anything to protect himself. He was shoved back far enough that his foot caught on the ledge of the roof and Peter could feel himself falling backwards before his mind fully caught up with the fact that he was indeed falling over.

He jerked a hand out shooting out his web hoping and praying that it would connect to anything. It felt like he was falling forever and the farther he fell the deeper it felt like his heart burrowed into his throat. Cutting off all of his air supply and choking him. He was in full panic mode and all he could think about was that he never took the time to re-install his parachute.

Finally though, Peter felt the resistance of his web catching onto something, and he held on tight. Though he wasn’t anticipating the absolute momentum of the bounce back that had him crashing into the side of the building __hard__. His arm slamming awkwardly between his body and the brick wall with enough force that it wretched a painful scream from his throat.

“That’s definitely not good.” His throat was sore and his voice sounded horse like he’d been screaming, and maybe he actually had been.

Distantly he heard Ned yelling his name over and over in his earpiece and Peter tried to pull himself together enough to focus on what else he was saying.

“ _ _Peter? Peter! Talk to me buddy, you need to tell me what’s going on, can you hear me? Are you okay?__ ” Ned’s voice was so frantic and terrified that Peter felt bad for scaring him like that.

“Eighty percent sure that my arm is broken.” He groaned out miserably. Dropping his head down so that he could see that yeah, his arm definitely hadn’t looked like that before. “Scratch that I’m now one-hundred percent sure that my arm is broken.”

Aw man, May was really gonna be pissed when she saw him.

* * *

Turn’s out Peter was right on both fronts. His arm was indeed broken, and on top of that he’s sprained his collarbone too so he got a nice cast as well as a sling for his trouble. And May was beyond pissed. First had come the tears and the fierce hugs that turned into gentle hugs when she realized she was hurting his arm. Then came the actual anger and the lectures about recklessness, and he was too young to be out there even with his abilities. She even saved the worst of all for last. Her most daring and deadly card of them all. 

How he was all that she had left and she couldn’t bare the thought of anything happening to him.

His broken arm had actually started to feel like a trip to the spa after a low blow like that.

It that wasn’t bad enough dealing with Ned was a whole different ballgame. By the time he clumsily made his way back to his apartment, which wasn’t easy at all. Web slinging jostled his arm too much so he actually had to ditch his backpack and call a Lyft ride to come pick him up. There weren’t any questions asked for which Peter was both immensely grateful and also maybe a tiny bit insulted. Like come one, Spider-Man in your backseat, hello! He was smart enough to tell the driver to drop him off a couple blocks away from his apartment but that still meant he had to walk and then crawl his way up and into his room window.

By the time he dropped inside, taking good care not to land on his injured arm, Ned was pretty much hysterical. Rambling incoherently something about how he’d been constantly refreshing the internet until someone uploaded a ten second short video with the title “SPIDERMAN GOT REKT!” A video which Ned actually stopped talking long enough to show him said video and Peter couldn’t help but wince every time he saw his arm hit that wall.

Which then lead to both his Aunt May and Ned peeling the suit off of his body and helping him into some regular clothes so that they could go to the emergency room.

They gave him some medication for the pain in his arm which helped a lot but it also put him right to sleep as soon as he got back into his room. The physical and mental exhaustion from his day probably didn’t help. All Peter knew was that he was light’s out the second his head hit that pillow.

* * *

Getting dressed with a thick and constricting cast definitely wasn’t any fun ,Peter found out as he got himself ready for school that next morning. Neither was riding a subway packed with people who didn’t have any qualms about him or his predicament, so long as they all got to where they were going 

Peter didn’t expect people to fawn over him or anything, but you know maybe a seat would have been nice.

To make matters worse as soon as he stepped through the doors to school Flash’s loud and obnoxious voice yelled out to him. “Too much jacking it, hey Petey? I didn’t mean for you to take Penis Parker so seriously.” Which for some reason actually made a few of the students around him laugh. Like, it wasn’t even remotely clever at all, no effort whatsoever.

So far the day was off to a not so great start, but isn’t the saying that if your day starts bad it can only go up from there? Peter sure hoped so.

When he jogged up the stairs to his locker he was surprised to see Michelle there waiting for him. She took one look at his cast and her eyebrows furrowed with confusion. He could even see some actually worry in there as well.

“Peter what the hell happened to you?” She asked once he was finally within earshot.

It literally just hit him at that very second that people were going to wonder the same thing and he hadn’t spent any time thinking up a reasonable story.

“Ned pushed me down a flight of stairs!” He just blurted out the very first thing that popped into his mind. He probably should have thought that one through.

“Ned, pushed you down a flight of stairs?” She repeated incredulously, it very clear that she didn’t believe a word he said but he couldn’t turn back now. This really sucked. If he would have just told her his secret sooner he wouldn’t be standing there digging his nice little hole deeper and deeper.

Michelle crossed her arms over her chest and gave him an unimpressed look. A look which Peter tried to pretend he didn’t see as he tried to put his combination into his locker one handed.

“Hey guys.” Ned walked up to the two of them and gave a nervous glance between him and Michelle. Obviously sensing the bit of tension that was wrapped around the two of them. “Whatcha talking about?”

“Oh Peter here was just telling me about what happened to his arm.” Michelle responded to Ned, though her eyes didn’t leave Peter at all.

“Yeah it was pretty crazy, this dude just came out of nowhere and slammed into him with his bike.” Ned told her and Peter wanted to close his eyes and bang his head against his locker. Maybe he could induce some kind of temporary memory loss and forget the two of them even existed.

Dammit Ned.

“Really?” Michelle asked, mock surprise in her tone. Peter knew he was in for it. “Because Peter here was just telling me that you pushed him down a flight of stairs. So weird right?” She smiled and shrugged but her face was not at all friendly and Peter was starting to panic a little bit.

Things were getting out of control way too fast and Peter felt absolutely powerless to stop it.

“Uh…” He could hear the panic starting to bloom in Ned’s voice too. “Yeah, totally I only told you part of the story! So I was actually messing around with Peter and accidentally pushed him down the stairs and then this dude with a bike just comes out of nowhere and-”

“Ned.” Peter cuts him off and turns around to face him with a shake of his head.

Peter chanced a look over at Michelle, expecting to see an angry and annoyed look on her face, ready to call him every dumb name in the book, but he didn’t see that.

She wasn’t even looking at him at all actually. Arms still crossed she was sharing down off to the side and Peter could see something shift in her expression. She did seem like she was angry but she also looked kinda sad and Peter hadn’t even realized that seeing her like that was even worse.

“Listen, Michelle…” He started in hopes that maybe he could explain everything to her and she would listen but instead she cut him off.

“Whatever, I’ve got to get to class.” She told them, walking away from him the second time in as many days and Peter just watched after her helplessly 

God, why was he such a screw up.

* * *

Peter was wallowing. Not in the complete dramatic face down fashion he wanted though because of his arm, so he had to settle for laying awkwardly sideways on his bed. One leg dangling off the edge of his bed while he stared at the mattress right above him.

Michelle was obviously avoiding him and he couldn’t say he blamed her. She hadn’t looked his way once during class despite his few attempts to talk to her and she hadn’t even bothered showing up for lunch. He knew that from her point of few he was probably coming off like a massive dick right about now. He’d spent so much time getting closer to her to the point of them having their not date-date and then totally going cold on her and shutting her out.

Overall Peter felt like crap, and not just because of his arm though that didn’t really help. It really seemed like every choice he made he always somehow ended up picking the wrong one. He felt like such an idiot and he hated letting anyone down. He just tried so hard to make what he felt were the right choices for himself and the people he cared about but they always turned around and blew up in his face. He thought keeping his whole Spider-Man a complete secret in the first place meant he could keep everyone safe but it just felt like he was constantly lying. It was better now that he didn’t really have to lie, or at least lie as much, to Ned and Aunt May anymore and that was fine when they were the only two important people in his life. That wasn’t the story anymore, at least he really really hoped it wasn’t.

Everyone talks about how cool and awesome it would to be a superhero but they never talk about this part, because this part really sucks.

Given how his first two adventures into the world of romance went maybe he just wasn’t meant for love. He could grow to be fine with that. Probably. Maybe. He could get a cat or something. Cats were pretty cool. He wouldn’t have to lie to his cat about where he was because the cat probably wouldn’t care so long as he continued to feed it and keep it sheltered. That’s what his future would be. Just him and his cat. Ned too because he couldn’t see a future without Ned in it.

Michelle probably hated him now and she probably should. He knew that he was being so hot and cold with her which was really unfair of him. His mind kept replaying that hurt look he saw on her face over and over until he just grabbed at his pillow and tried to smother himself with it in hopes of distracting himself.

Peter knew that he was well on his way to really liking her, already liked her quite a lot more than he’d originally realized. He hoped that there was still a way for him to fix all of this. That he wasn’t too late to even get just her friendship back if she decided that anything else was just too much for her. That would be a real bummer that he wasn’t looking forward to but he’d rather be her friend than not have her in his life at all.

It was truly wild to him that someone who he didn’t even really talk to or think about even a month ago could be so important to him now.

A knock on his door caught his attention but Peter didn’t bother to pull the pillow away from his head.

He heard the sound of the door opening and then Aunt May’s voice. “Peter, honey, you’ve got someone here to see you.” Peter wasn’t sure why she was making such a grand announcement because the only person who ever came to see him was Ned. Sure Tony Stark did drop by one time but Peter was pretty sure he was still upstate at the Avenger’s headquarters.

Peter grunted noncommittally and stayed where he was.

“Alright I’ll leave you two alone, though let’s keep this door open.” He heard May leave his room.

“Well don’t you look pathetic.” Peter sat up so fast at the sound of Michelle’s voice. That the pillow flew off his face and onto the floor.

“Michelle,” He said lamely, but what the hell else was he supposed to say. He was just so shocked that she was even standing there right in front of him. “What are you doing here? Not that I don’t want you here, because I really do. I’m just…surprised.”

She didn’t answer him, just stood in the center of his room and studied him. Like __really__  studied him like this was the first time she was ever actually seeing him and she didn’t know exactly what she was looking at.

Peter shifted uncomfortably under her gaze.

“I just need to confirm something.” She finally said and a nervous feeling started to spread in his stomach.

“Okay…?” Peter looked at her with apprehension.

She reached into her back pocket and pulled out her phone before talking again. “A very interesting video was actually going around school this afternoon.” She told him as she typed something onto the screen. “Usually I don’t pay attention to that kind of stuff because ninety-nine percent of the time its either something stupid or offensive, likely even both.”

Peter swallowed thickly as he watched her in silence. A sick feeling in his stomach that he knew exactly what video she was talking about.

“But while I was in the library I happened to look up and catch the video playing on the computer screen in front of me. It was a video of Spider-Man, but that’s not surprising because the whole school is pretty obsessed with him now. What __was__  surprising though was watching him slam into that wall pretty embarrassingly, and I happened to noticed that he just so happened to ram himself in the same exact side that you show up to school with in a cast and sling.”

Peter’s eyes had slowly been widening more and more as she went on and he felt frozen. Like all the blood in his body was replaced with concrete and he couldn’t move.

“And you know I thought back to yesterday when you and Ned were talking about this ever mysterious ‘ _ _thing__ ’ that neither of you would elaborate on that you both had to do after school. And then I thought about all the other ‘ _ _things__ ’ you keep flaking on everyone to disappear off and do. You’re definitely too smart to do drugs so that wasn’t even an option. At first I thought maybe you had like some weird secret girlfriend that you kept hidden but you were so obsessed with Liz so that theory didn’t last very long either.”

There was no denying now that Peter knew exactly where this was all going and even though twenty-four hours ago he was fully prepared to come clean to her it was different once he was actually faced with the reality of having to do it.

“Of all the people I expected to be Spider-Man, can’t say that you were anywhere on that list.”

That threw him off, shaking him out of his shocked stupor. “Wait, what makes you say that?”

She gave him a look that he interpreted as: ‘Really? That’s what you’re hung up on?’

The two of them were silent for a long while. Even though the were only a few feet apart considering Peter’s bedroom wasn’t all that big in the first place he just felt so far away from her and he didn’t like it.

“I was gonna tell you.” He broke their silence because he couldn’t stand it anymore. It was starting to drive him crazy.

Michelle scoffed like she didn’t believe him. “Sure you were.”

“Really, I was!” He had to get her to believe him. “Just yesterday I was telling Ned about how I wanted to come clean and tell you everything. But then this whole mess happened.” He gestured to his arm with his uninjured hand.

“Then why didn’t you just tell me when I saw you at your locker earlier?” She asked.

“I…I don’t know. It’s not really something that I like just blurting out in the middle of school and I guess I panicked.” Maybe not the best excuse in the world but it was the truth.

“Listen, Michelle. Can you um, can you just sit down please so I can explain everything?” He asked, shifting over on his bed to give her plenty of space so she wouldn’t have be to right up on him.

He watched her debate whether or not she wanted to actually listen to him and he held his breath while he waited for her decision. Finally after what felt like forever she walked over to his bed and sat down. Her back pressed against the metal frame so that she was actually facing him.

Peter let out a grateful breath as he tried to figure out where he should even start.

“I meant what I said when I told you I planned to tell you. It’s just, everything, like all of this is so new to me I’m kinda making it up as I go along here. It’s not like there’s some kind of rule book that you get, or at the very least if there is nobody told me about it. But that’s really not an excuse.” He looked down at his lap and concentrated on a frayed thread of his pants.

“I didn’t like lying to you but I knew that if I told you then things might change. Probably for the better but from now on who knows what’ll happen. I guess I figured the less people who knew about me the better because then they’d be safe from everything. Maybe I was afraid that you’d start to look at me different or treat me some kind of way because I wouldn’t be just Peter with you. And I really like being just Peter with you.”

He peeked up over at her quickly before ducking his head back down.

“The more time we spent together the more I kept thinking that I should just come out and say it anyway. Because I didn’t want this whole thing to be a repeat of what happened with Liz. I kept lying to her and lying to her until everything was all this huge tangled web-” A pun even in this time of stress, wow. “-that I didn’t even know what to do anymore and I ruined everything. I didn’t wanna make the same mistake with you. Even though I realize now that I kinda did? But at least I’m hoping that things aren’t too ruined between us to fix?” Taking another deep breath to steel his nerves Peter finally lifted his head back up again so that he could turn and face her.

“You’re such an idiot.” She shook her head softly.

Okay wow, he was out here bearing his heart and soul to her and that’s the response he gets.

“You really thought I was gonna see you differently just because now I know you put on a weird spandex suit and swing around the city on webs?” She asked him, eyebrow raised.

“When you put it like that it sounds really lame, which I shouldn’t even be surprised that you made having superpowers seem lame, but it’s actually a whole lot cooler than that.” Peter defended.

Michelle shook her head again as she sat up. “Alright, I do admit that I do have a lot of questions but that’s just out of sheer scientific curiosity. Other than that I’m not gonna like, start fawning all over you and ask to feel your muscles or anything.”

“Are you sure though, they are pretty impressive.” He made a show of casually flexing his free arm and he watched as Michelle’s lips twitched as sh fought a smile.

“Get over yourself, Parker. I’m not here to feed your ego.” She rolled her eyes as she pushed his arm away.

They were silent again for a moment and her expression turned serious once more. “Look Peter, I know that we might not have always gotten along before but I’d like to think were friends. And I…it did sting a little bit when I thought that you were keeping secrets from me. Especially after the whole, you know.” She gestured with her hand to the beanbag chairs still sat in the middle of his room and he knew exactly what she meant.

“I know, and I’m honestly the biggest jerk for doing that to you and if I could go back I would probably tell you right then and there and save the both of us from this whole mess.” Things would have been so much simpler if he had just done that. “If you don’t completely forgive me that’s fine, or if you need some space that’s cool too. But I just really hope that you don’t hate enough to stop being my friend. Because I really like having you as a friend. I, uh, I actually like you even as more…” Say it, say it, just say it. “…than a friend.”

He didn’t meet her eyes as he said that last part, physically couldn’t bring himself to do it. This whole afternoon has him feeling overly exposed than he’d like to be and he was a guy who wore a spandex suit that left literally nothing to the imagination.

He almost jumped right off the mattress when he felt her scooting closer to him and he watched as one of her hands wrapped around his own, holding them there in his lap.

“Against all common sense and better judgment,” She made a big show of letting out a put upon sigh. “I guess I like you too.” The last part was mumbled a little bit underneath her breath but he heard the words clear as day.

A stupidly wide smile sat on his face as he continued to stare down at their hands. “Wow, Michelle Jones thinks I’m cute, who knew.”

She snorted. “Alright buddy let’s not get too ahead of ourselves I didn’t say that at all.”

“Okay but you just said you like me so obviously you think that I’m cute.” Peter argued, pulling his eyes away from their hands so that he could see her face. Peter was happy to see that she had an equally dumb grin on her face as well.

“I already regret this.” She tried to pull her hand away but peter intertwined their fingers, keeping her hand locked with his.

“Sorry, too late. No take-backs, returns, or exchanges.” He shrugged his shoulders, not even paying attention to the sting of pain that came from his collarbone. The two of them sat in a contented silence for a while, just relaxing in each other’s presence when a thought popped into Peter’s head. “Do you think like, that we should kiss now or something? To make it official?”

Peter never actually kissed anyone, so he didn’t really know the whole protocol for it. He just knew in movies that after the two leads make some kind of grand gesture or confessed their feelings there’s usually a kiss that followed. 

Michelle seemed to be equally as perplexed with the whole idea. “Do you wanna kiss right now?”

Did he? He never had any kind of opportunity or situation where he could just go for something like that. He didn’t think he’d mind kissing her. And now that the idea of kissing her was planted in his head he couldn’t help but stare at her lips. He never really cared enough to focus on anyone’s lips but now it was like he was overly aware of the fact that Michelle had lips, and he just so happened to also have lips.

“I’ve never actually kissed anyone before.” He admitted to her, his voice a whisper.

“Me neither.”

He wasn’t quite sure if he was ready to kiss her, he literally just got acquainted with the idea that he even wanted to kiss her in the first place. Plus it might be a little cheesy but he kinda wanted their first kiss to be something special, not just a random thing that happened after she found out he was Spider-Man.

Just then his saving grace in the form of Aunt May stepped into the doorway and he was so eternally grateful that he internally promised he’d never say another bad word about her leftovers never ever again.

“Hey guys, I just put some lasagna in the oven, Michelle you’re more than welcome to stay for dinner if that’s alright with your parents.” She told them, brushing her hands off on the apron tied around her waist.

“Sure I’d love to, I just have to call my dad and let him know.” Michelle answered.

“Sounds like a plan! I’ll call you guys when the cheese is all melty.” She replied and with a pointedly amused look that she shot at their still linked hands she turned to leave. But not before pushing the door open even wider which was a bit unnecessary but he didn’t complain.

With the two of them left alone again Michelle gave his hand a quick squeeze before letting go and Peter couldn’t help the slight pout that formed on his lips.

“Oh cut it out you junkie, I’ll be right back.” She rolled her eyes but her smile was all that he focused on.

Right before she got up from the bed though she paused for a second, as if contemplating something, but before Peter could even ask he felt her lips press against his cheek before he even fully registered the fact that she leaned in.

Peter sat there a little dumbfounded as he felt both his cheeks heat up, the side that she’d kissed even more so. He could only watch her, his mouth parted slightly as all his words and brain function promptly failed him.

Michelle’s only response was a smug smile as she stood up from the bed and stepped out into the hallway so that she could call her dad.

Once she was gone Peter felt his lips slowly spread into a wide smile without much thought as he flopped back against his bed processing the last twenty minutes. He let out a breathless laugh as he pressed his free hand against his cheek.

Guess he wouldn’t be needing that cat after all.

**Author's Note:**

> TELL ME WHAT YOU GUYS THOUGHT! Honest opinions and all. I'm going to be a constant case of anxiety from now until probably forever so help ease my misery. I really hope you guys liked it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I just love these kids so much. I might actually go and write their first kiss one day as like a one shot or something who knows.
> 
> You can find me at twitter [@stevertrevors](https://twitter.com/stevertrevors) or on tumblr [@stevesdiana](http://stevesdiana.tumblr.com/)


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